We Aren’t in the Midwest Anymore

 Danielle constantly tells me I’m too trustworthy, and she is right. We are opposite with how much she locks things and secures items. She rightfully gets upset when I don’t lock things. I don’t think this is because I’m lazy or don’t care about my things, I blame it on my Midwest roots being difficult to part with.  I always said it will likely bite me in the butt one day, and that day finally came.

Our garage door recently broke and it was a pain in the booty to open and shut manually. Danielle couldn’t do it herself so only I was able to move it. We had the garage door guy scheduled to come out and fix the door the following Monday morning.

On Saturday, I moved my work office from the garage to our room. I also started packing for my upcoming sheep hunt. After dinner, I was planning on packing more and tidying up the garage, however, that didn’t happen. Ashton LOVES to cuddle and he convinced me to engage in an extended cuddling session, AKA, lay and hold him all night while he sleeps.

Danielle woke me up and asked if I was going back in the garage, to which I told her, YES. She said she would shut the door, but didn’t know how. Well, I never made it back to the garage that night and slept all night on the couch with Ashton.

The next morning, I went to work in the garage. While packing for my sheep hunt, I couldn’t find Kevin’s spotting scope I borrowed for the caribou hunt. I also couldn’t find my binoculars. I was sure I placed both of these things on the table in the garage, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Luckily, I have a security camera in the garage so I decided to check the footage.

Sure enough, the spotting scope and binoculars were right where I left them the day prior. As I fast forwarded through the footage, a cat was seen snooping in the garage. At 4AM, a group of guys on bikes were seen in the street, and one of them entered the garage! My stomach dropped when I realized I was watching my garage get robbed.

This guy was masked so there was nothing to identify him with. He entered the garage and helped himself to the ala cart of hunting and fishing items I had on display after unpacking from our recent outing and packing for the upcoming hunt. He quickly found the spotting scope, binoculars, my fishing tackle, a revolver, my camera, GPS, and many other items. He was in our garage less than 5 minutes, but in that time, we swiped over $6k worth of items. Luckily, he was the only one in the gang that picked through the garage and since he was on a bike, he couldn’t take carry too much.

I immediately called the police and showed them the footage. We found the places he touched, but they were unable to pull any prints. The police report was filed and an investigator was assigned the case since the value of items was over $5k and a felony occurred (stolen gun).

After the police stopped by, I filed a claim with my Home Owners insurance and completed those tedious steps. After a $1k deductible and $1k in depreciation, insurance will help replace the missing items by writing a $4k check.

Luckily we were able to recover the tackle box back pack. I write our phone number on most things, and when the thieves decided they couldn’t sell any of the fishing tackle, they dumped the pack next to a trail. A random guy found the pack, called my cell, and we set up a time to recover the pack. Although the pack may not have been the most expensive item, it was the one item I was the happiest to get back simply because of all the tackle I have accumulated over the years and how specific the inserts were for certain species.  

Here's the video of the crime: